Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a panel inspection apparatus, and more particularly, relates to a panel inspection apparatus capable of continuously inspecting an upper surface, a lower surface, two horizontal side surfaces and two vertical side surfaces of each of a plurality of panels.
Descriptions of the Related Art
With the improvement of the consumer display apparatus technology and the growing demand for consumer display apparatuses, the display effect of display apparatuses such as mobile phones, tablet computers and televisions needs to be improved correspondingly. In addition to the high-end panel manufacturing technology, inspection of the panel products is further used as a key means to improve the value of the products.
Panels are often subjected to cleaning, cutting or delivering procedures during the manufacturing process, so defects such as smudges, cracks, scratches, or scraps are likely to be generated on the surface or at the periphery of a panel. If the aforesaid defects fail to be found by the inspection personnel in the early-stage inspection process of the panel, then not only the yield of the subsequently assembled product will be decreased, but the backend mechanical equipment used in the assembling process may also be damaged due to the aforesaid defects of the panel.
Thus, in order to inspect surfaces of the panel, i.e., an upper surface, a lower surface and four side surfaces (i.e., a front side surface, a back side surface, a left side surface and a right side surface), the inspection equipment performs inspection in a section-by-section manner on different surfaces of the panel to obtain relevant inspection results in the current inspection process. Moreover, some mechanical equipment adopts several mechanical arms to transfer the to-be-tested object (i.e., the panel) and also to obtain information of the aforesaid surfaces by turning over the object or changing the working region with the mechanical arms.
On the other hand, in addition to the optical technology, other physical inspection methods may also be adopted to obtain information of the surfaces of the panel. However, although a highly accurate inspection result may be obtained through the various physical inspection methods, the inspection time is prolonged and the possibility that the panel might be damaged in the inspection process is increased because most of the inspection equipment performs inspection in a section-by-section manner or through complicated procedures.
Accordingly, an urgent need exists in the art to provide a one-time panel inspection process, which can inspect all surfaces of a panel in a single inspection process to improve the inspection efficiency and reduce the damage to the panel.